The Meadow 75 blushing question marks. Late in the afternoon, I go into the stacks to look for a psychology book for a customer. I turn and nearly jump out of my skin when I find Lupita standing inches behind me. “Jesus. What?” She clasps her hands. “You okay, Michaela?” “Peachy,” I mutter. “I’m sorry,” she says. “It’s whatever, she—” “I mean about everything. About us.” I gesture to her ring. “Did he find that thing in a cereal box?” Before she can respond, I shoulder past her toward the ref desk. Since they know who my sister is, it’s easy enough to get a picture of her. They pull it off Facebook. You’d think it would be a step up from an actual mug shot, but Katherine found this really deranged selfie where Brigid’s eye make-up is thick and smeary, all blacks and greens and purples swirling over a hideous Joker grin. This unflattering photo is already pinned up in the spot vacated by the murdered homeless man, the one who was also talking nonsense about the mountains. I shiver. What is to become of my sister? When I was ten and Brigid was 14, we were playing soccer barefoot in the backyard, and a scorpion stung me. Our parents were at the grocery store, but my sister, a former Girl Scout raised in the southwest, immediately sprung into action. She carried me inside, cleaned my foot with a soapy water, put a cold compress on the bite, and called Poison Control. “Yes, I did that,” she told the operator. “Mmhmm, okay. Monitor for signs of—” She wrote something on our mom’s yellow butterfly pad, sounding not unlike our mother herself. When she got off the phone, I demanded, “Monitor for signs of what? Is my foot going to fall off or something?”
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